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Why I Joined The Air Force

My USAF time after Basic.... No Inspections, No Marching, No Shooting.... I did have to salute a couple times....

I guess it depended on what you did and where you were.

In aircraft maintenance any work you completed on an aircraft or a/c component was inspected by a 7-level/supervisor. A second time if Quality Assurance was involved. Wasn't so much how you looked personally, but how you did your job.

Most maintainers marched their butts to and from the flightline countless times daily (unless the expeditors were coddling therm). Not to mention daily FOD walks.

When I was in, maintainers had to qualify annually on the M16; semiannually if you shot "expert" (talk about getting the shaft for doing good). But weapons load teams trained constantly. Not to mention "hot pits" and cross utilization training. Maintainers jobs aren't to fight directly, but to ensure our operators can.

Maintainers have the Warrior Spirit; they just have to take the long view. They're working on multi-million dollar aircraft and a pilot is putting their life in the maintainers hands.

I loved it. Saw aircraft maintenance from the enlisted and officer side. Loved my work and the troops.

:plane: :usa2:
 
I guess it depended on what you did and where you were.

In aircraft maintenance any work you completed on an aircraft or a/c component was inspected by a 7-level/supervisor. Again I'd Quality Assurance was involved. Wasn't so much how you looked personally, but how you did you job.

Most maintainers marched their butts to and from the flightline countless times daily (unless the expeditors were coddling therm). Not to mention daily FOD walks.

When I was in, maintainers had to qualify annually on the M16; semiannually if you shot "expert" (talk about getting the shaft for doing good). But weapons load teams trained constantly. Not to mention "hot pits" and cross utilization training. Maintainers jobs aren't to fight directly, but to ensure our operators could.

Maintainers have the Warrior Spirit; they just have to take the long view. They're working on multi-million dollar aircraft and a pilot is putting their life in the maintainers hands.

I loved it. Saw aircraft maintenance from the enlisted and officer side. Loved by work and the troops.

:plane: :usa2:


You did good...
Was Base Operations / Flight Planning at Vance in Enid, OK... Training base T-37's and T-38's.... My entire USAF career was right there.
3 Half days on... 3 Half days off....
 
My son intends to start JROTC next year when he starts high school. It's Air Force affiliated. I'm glad. :)
The only recruiting office I ever walked into as a young GeauxLSU was Air Force (Didn't sign. Went in for wrong reasons. Additionally recruiter apparently thought I was an idiot so in retrospect right decision). Dad was Army Air Corps in WWII, brother Navy then Army (ret LTC), nephews Navy and Army. All served honorably. :usa:
To all who have, regardless of how posh your sleeping quarters were at any point in time.... :yo: :usa2:
 
My son intends to start JROTC next year when he starts high school. It's Air Force affiliated. I'm glad. :)
The only recruiting office I ever walked into as a young GeauxLSU was Air Force (Didn't sign. Went in for wrong reasons. Additionally recruiter apparently thought I was an idiot so in retrospect right decision). Dad was Army Air Corps in WWII, brother Navy then Army (ret LTC), nephews Navy and Army. All served honorably. :usa:
To all who have, regardless of how posh your sleeping quarters were at any point in time.... :yo: :usa2:
Exactly! :usa: :usa2:
 
My typical "No ****, there I was" scenario;
Army Vet; Yeah man, the enemy had us surrounded and was putting up some pretty decent suppressive fire and then our artillery shut them down 10 minutes later!
Marine Vet: We were traversing this gorram stream and climbing up the sides when a couple guys got stuck with the punji sticks. Then Charlie hit us with an L-shaped ambush. Lucky for us Sarge had extra grenades that day.
Me: I was working an ECP at this SAC WSA one night and had to use GI toilet paper in the Mr. Coffee machine because we ran out of filters.
 
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